Please Warm My Weiner

Silly/smutty innuendo, surrounded by sly and buttery singing and awesome guitar playing. 

Bo Carter was a member and manager of the great Mississippi Sheiks (real name Armenter Chatmon, so he's related to Sam and the other Chatmons).

I confess that mostly I love these songs because they're dirty-minded. And so am I. But you could make a good case for him as one of the great songsters of the 1930s, if you prefer to seem above all that....

...If you don't prefer to seem above all that, enjoy this link with my smutty compliments:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kh2qm2ctf03l066/Bo%20Carter-%20Banana%20In%20Your%20Fruit%20Basket.zip

Let Your Doggone Head Go Bald

Great funky messy electric blues. Supposedly he had 11 fingers: started with six on each hand, cut one off with a razor blade.

Supposedly also had trouble keeping bandmates because he refused to make changes at the same time each time and would just gallop on and leave them behind.

In short, this is one of those dudes who seems almost imaginary, he's such a perfect blues cliche. Except that he was real, and the music proves it. It's raw and ragged and intense, note after note. In fact, almost the first thing you hear is that this is no Claptonesque smooth noodle blues. This fucker was serious.


So, download and love.

Link's in two pieces due to upload restrictions.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/w5tkujiu3w1d46r/Hound%20Dog%20Taylor%20and%20the%20Houserockers1of2.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/btt7zcvkui2rb5z/Hound%20Dog%20Taylor%20and%20the%20Houserockers2of2.zip

Until Your Big Wheel Come

John Lee Hooker was one of the great musical forces of the twentieth century, and the contents of this album are among the greatest music ever made. There is no better male blues singer to be heard; there may be no better blues guitarist (despite or perhaps because of the limitations of his technique). He created his own style and used it with complete and utter mastery, for decade after decade.

I've no idea what happened to the artwork for this album, or even which album it is really: there appear to be multiple releases under the same name. There are more John Lee Hooker albums than there are years to listen. Many are repackaged compilations. This one happens to approximate the one I first heard when I was 15, so it seems like the best to me. But any John Lee Hooker before 1990 is probably going to be a wonderful listening experience. (The end-of-life stuff filled with celebrity guests isn't terrible either, but it is what it is- star-studded retreads, and watered down).

What he does best is angst, of a particular male and almost macho variety that's helped fuel some of the terrible blues cliches adopted by suck-ass imitators (but don't blame him for them). His specialty is brooding depression, or bottom-of-the-pit woe. He does anger well too, of the simmering-rage variety though in most cases not as well as he does the real fixin-to-die misery. When he mixes in some growly dissatisfied lust, well, that's the blues all wrapped up in a bundle, and nobody does it better. 

Even better: what you hear once you get past that surface (and it's okay if you don't-- it's a damn good surface, after all) is some unexpected depth: bits of bitter humor, slowed-down party-time intensity, and occasional moments of sweetness or fragility float by. But the ouvre is mostly deep and dark and miserable.

Enjoy!

(link's in two parts; just unzip to one folder and proceed with however you usually do this sort of thing from there)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/84tispj2u85va0u/John%20Lee%20Hooker-%20Blues%20Before%20Sunrise1of2.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/n50pdxwva9ueoxq/John%20Lee%20Hooker-%20Blues%20Before%20Sunrise2of2.zip

Hey, Hey Bartender!

Some video, courtesy of Kahlief's iPhone, of our performance last Sunday at Pete's Candy Store. "Eye" was the only original song we did. The others here are "Hey, Hey Bartender" by Del McCoury; "Pistol Packin' Mama" by Al Dexter, and "September Song" by Kurt Weill.

Just a Shout Away

(then, you might try this:
http://video.filestube.com/watch,fd3d58493e03ba2703ea/Pixies-Debaser-Ukulele-Rock-cover.html)

Wandering

A long dreamy slice of melancholy cello. Excellent for afternoon naps.

The cellist is Alban Gerhardt, playing music by Peter Kuhlmann (aka hyperprolific synth-ambient superhero Pete Namlook). 

Even more than most of the posts here, this is clearly a marginal release, so if you like it a trip to the iTunes store is highly recommended.

I discovered this slice of deliciousness via the alluringly addictive Sleepbot. 

All one mp3, but in two parts to meet upload restrictions. Unrar them to one folder.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/n5s3dwb9jqa3zq6/Peter%20Kuhlmann%20%26%20Alban%20Gerhardt-%20Wandering%20Soul.part1.rar

http://www.mediafire.com/file/m6t8qympzahzqbm/Peter%20Kuhlmann%20%26%20Alban%20Gerhardt-%20Wandering%20Soul.part2.rar

Música Callada

"It is rather difficult to translate and explain the real meaning of "Música Callada" in any language other than Spanish. The great mystic poet San Juan de la Cruz speaks in one of his beautiful poems: "La Música Callada, la Soledad Sonora" [Silent Music, Resonant Solitude] seeking thus to express the idea of a music that would be the very voice of silence. Music retaining for itself its quiet voice, that is, remaining silent while solitude becomes its own music." [Preface, published score to Música Callada]

This is Vol. 4 of a 4-volume set. I also own Vol.1 and love both. At some point I will buy the other two. And pretty much anything else that I find, by anyone, playing Mompou.  

(from http://www.pianosociety.com/cms/index.php?section=213):

"Federico Mompou, Catalan composer and pianist, was born in Barcelona in 1893. He studied piano at the Conservatorio del Liceo in Barcelona and gave his first concert at the age of 15. However, his shy and reticent nature did not predestine him to be a virtuoso performer, and he decided to become a composer after hearing Gabriel Faure perform his Quintet. Three years later, with a letter of recommendation from Granados, he went to Paris to study harmony and piano with Isidor Philipp and Ferdinand Motte-Lacroix. In Paris, he became influenced by the French impressionism of Debussy Satie. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Mompou returned to Barcelona, where he wrote his first works for the piano.

In 1921 Mompou returned to Paris where he remained for 20 years and became a respected composer. In 1941 he settled permamently in Barcelona. He was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, elected to the Royal Academy of San Jorge in Barcelona and of San Fernando in Madrid, and made Doctor Honoris Causa at the University of Barcelona. He married the Catalan pianist Carmen Bravo in 1957, and died in Barcelona on June 30th, 1987.

Mompou was a modest, quietly spoken, and thoughtful person and this is reflected in his music. He wrote no operas, concertos or symphonies, and some choral works are as close as he got to producing large-scale works. He was predominantly a composer of lyric songs and piano miniatures. The music is imbued with the colours, sounds, and images of his beloved Catalonia, the style ranging from elegantly impressionistic to simplistic and minimal. Here we see the influence of Satie in using the utmost economy of means, doing away with key signatures and bar lines, and occasionally inserting silly comments. As a young man, Mompou worked briefly in a bell factory, and the sound of bells can be heard throughout his works. For Mompou, less is more, and one needs a finely attuned ear and a responsive state of mind to properly appreciate his music."

(I like how they flatter the listener at the end there.)

He sounds like he was an interesting guy: quietly eccentric, and devoted to his craft. I'm not sure the Masó performances are the best-- to my uneducated ears they sound, perhaps, a trifle fussy and precise-- I hope to hear better at some point-- maybe Michelangeli, who I just discovered on Youtube recently?-- but they're certainly gorgeous in their way and make for wonderfully relaxing evening music.

Anyhow, you'll enjoy this if you enjoy Satie. (And what kind of person doesn't enjoy Satie?)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/kfuctgrktvcrmt4/Frederic%20Mompou_Jordi%20Maso-%20Piano%20Music%20Vol%204.zip

for much more (5 volumes of Mompou playing Mompou!) go here:
http://elrestoesruido.blogspot.com/2008/11/federico-mompou-mompou-plays-mompou.html

Lots of good purchasables (discs and downloads) at CDUniverse.

A Long Way From Home

Lots of miscellaneous Youtube goodness.







Not Youtube, but you'll want to listen:
http://soundcloud.com/rogboy/burn-it-down-los-lobos

Incurable

There's a lot of retro-nostalgia(?) these days for the 80s. Most of the contributors of this blog grew up during the 80s. And guess what!??! It WAS awesome. We just didn't know it at the time. It was a bunch of shitty pre-adolescent sexual frustration and Republican yuppies. And Michael Jackson was big. Except he sucked then. But now he's cool. I guess. I don't know. The first CDs I bought were in the early 90s. Some Cure, some Skinny Puppy, Ministry and Front 242. There's some Cure I can listen to. They have some great singles, Just Like Heaven, Love Cats and what have you. I obsessed over Disintegration when I was a teen. I still like the titular track, but really it's teeny-bopper shit.

For the real Cure, you got to go to Echo and the Bunnymen. Or as an alternative, The Sound, an enduring obsession of mine. The mastermind behind The Sound was a man named Adrian Borland, and succumbed to crippling schizo-depression in 1999 and committed suicide.

My parents always made fun of me when I listened to my Cure records--"Why is that guy in so much pain?" Well, ma, dad, it's an act. For all I know Robert Smith might be the most depressed man alive. But there is a much more profound quiet pain in The Sound. It is post-punk stripped of most of the glam/punk-kid affectations. Quite in the same genius vein of label mates Echo and the Bunnymen--but less cinematic and much more introspective.

And unlike the Bunnymen, The Sound never had a hit single. The first couple of albums are incredibly, Ian Curtis-inspired, austere and dark (and I love them QED.) They were urged to write more accessible tunes; they certainly were capable of it. Listen to "One Thousand Reasons."--a song Bobby Smith could have written--if he had any decency. (And I guess his indecency is his appeal.) But The Sound didn't sell-out their sound. They released another barely commercially viable album Thunder Up and then broke up. I guess Borland had minor success in the Nederlands and released a number of solo albums (which I'm processing now--seems to be excellent stuff). So it wasn't all for naught. Except he killed himself.

I'm giving you some of my most well-worn mp3s: the mid-period 1985 EPs Shock of Daylight / Heads and Hearts.

So, the sound of The Sound: Dark post punk. But not goofy gothic. (Though I like 80s gothic--don't get me wrong.) This mid-period stuff has quite a lot instrumental movement going on it; but on songs like "Longest Days" all the parts mesh like a smooth ticking, bitter-sweet alarm clock. The bass sound is amazing. The guitar sounds great. The keyboards sound great. Hell, even the saxophone sounds great. Enough talk. Time for the delicious pop-pain of The Sound!

ICI.

{Side note, trying rapidshare. Let me know if this is a problem.}


Post Script: I think some of the details of the history are wrong. All Fall Down was the album that Borland wrote in response to his label's request to make more accessible tunes. The EPs here are after all that. I don't know. Go here and figure it out with me.

So, So, So Wrong

High Wolf

Totally digging this album: zoned-out but frenetic haze, like some odd mix of krautrock, flying saucer attack, and minimalist percussion jams. Nice stuff.

Can't You Hear The Wind Howl?

This is the 'The Complete Recordings' set of Robert Johnson's music, which ought to be pretty broadly commercially available (I used to have it on cassette- those were the days...). Only, pitch-shifted down, by me.

I opened each file (working with mp3s, which is audiophile-loserdom, but whatever) in Sound Forge and pitch-shifted to 90%.

I've always thought RJ sounded too shrill and frenzied to be real, and had often wondered over the years if the recordings weren't pitch-shifted. But only recently with a bunch of press about the theory that it actually WAS, did I take that theory seriously. Slowed a little, he no longer sounds quite as bizarre and otherworldly, sure-- but he DOES sound excellent. And human. He sounds like the other blues singers of his time and place. And his guitar sounds like a guitar, not a ukelele.

85%, which is the number I've seen online, seemed too slow to my ears- it made RJ sound froggy and his guitar thumpy. Having played and sung (poorly) myself for several decades, I'm pretty familiar with the sound of the instrument. And I've listened to a lot of country and delta blues-- so 90% might not be exactly right, but it sounds ok to my ears. Hopefully it'll sound good to yours.

My suspicion, actually, is that each song is probably slightly different. Some songs still sound a little fast, and others a little slow. But this is probably a truer picture of the actual sound of the musician, than the regular version. So, hey. Whatever.

There are lots of odd arguments going around about authenticity and ownership-- was it intended to be sped up? (Apparently Johnson himself may have never heard his own recordings, and they were not much of a commercial success at the time, so many of his peers may not have either, for what that's worth). Did all the early listeners, his contemporaries, think it sounded normal? If Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, et al, thought fast was normal, does that make it right? Ultimately I'm not too interested in any of this. All I know is that the slower version sounds more musical. 

If you haven't heard these songs slowed down before, it's a bit unnerving. It's a bit like seeing an old movie that you'd only watched on a worn-out VHS, in a restored print via Blu-Ray. Suddenly the details jump out and the nuances and dimensions are audible.

Hope you enjoy  this as much as me.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/s37fs1ysbynobx5/The%20Complete%20Recordings%20%28Pitch-Corrected%29%201%20of%202.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/prybm9qo8a885cq/The%20Complete%20Recordings%20%28Pitch-Corrected%29%202%20of%202.zip

A Thousand Miles Away

A million glorious music moments. Dip in wherever. They're all worthwhile, I promise.

Eno in one of his lovelier moments. From Before and After Science.

A short segment of a much longer performance. Debashish Battacharya always has the most glorious sound.

Mississippi John Hurt is unfuckwithable. This song is a particular favorite, for somehow managing to be playful, lecherous, a little sorrowful, and gently optomistic, all at once.

Anytime someone objects to "music today isn't as good as music of yesteryear", shit like this (and the next 5 or so) is good to display. This casual display of utter brilliance, by what looks like a bunch of 20-year olds, ought to make the average 'I know a jazz chord' guitarist weep. (Guitarists should just avoid most of these entirely, unless they need to change their pants anyway).

Also See:

Louis Armstrong --Struttin with some barbecue

www.youtube.com

Louis and his All Stars 1953

Worth the detour to the Youtube page. Armstrong was such a public figure that it's easy to forget how funky, precise and lovely his music could be. This little performance makes my liver quiver.

Any fans of both the VU and Marvin Gaye, will probably be suitably delighted/horrified by this. Good prank. Interesting creation. 

In this clip, a contest is being held to see if music can melt stone. Spoiler alert: yes.

I love the Stars of the Lid. You should not listen to any of their music while driving or operating heavy equipment.

Most of the Chaurasia I've heard has been super-mellow and meditative; this has got some melody and activity to it, and is delightful.

Watch those fuckers' fingers. How do human beings do this?

Popol Vuh is one of my personal all-time-most-revered-musical-units. I could listen to this song every morning for the rest of my life.

Old friends made this song. I'd love it even if that wasn't true.

Someday, I will learn to play the Oud. But, I will never play any instrument as well as this guy plays the Oud.

The delights of this aren't so much musical, as existential.

The delights of this are completely musical. (And, maybe, existential too).

Over & out. Hope you enjoyed some of these.

The Best Show on WFMU and the Tuareg Guitar Revolution!!!!

I have too many mp3s. I'm not doing anything drastic like deleting anything. But I have TOO many mp3s. Yes, many are torrented and many are downloaded from sites like these. I have a subscription with emusic--50 mp3 downloads a month. Bands that I obsess over I try to support that still have available product, such as The Sound, For Against, The Chameleons. (I promise to go more into my post-punk obsession in the future.) I also buy bands that are associated with the Best Show on WFMU. I'm not totally into all the stuff he (Tom Scharpling) plays. But he plays a pretty diverse array of stuff that rocks. I found the Bingo Trappers, Reigning Sound, Black Lips and some other garage-punk that I hadn't really been into before. He also has a profound knowledge of classic rock, and is a convincing advocate of Paul McCartney's solo work, and always throws in some killer psych-rock. (It is really quite amazing how much amazing psych-rock there is.) I also have been buying Ted Leo and Pharmacist albums--and I like them, even though I hated them at first. But he is a friend of Tom Scharpling, and all around cool dude who works his ass off to make incredible dense, hook-heavy punkitude rock.

Scharpling directed Ted Leo's latest video. It's a funny send-up of the Green Day musical:

Ted Leo And The Pharmacists - "Bottled In Cork" (Official Video) from Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

And I recently actually ordered some actually physical product, both from Merge Records: The new Superchunk record, and the three CD retrospective of Big Dipper. Both are Best Show related. Tom Scharpling set the wheels in motion to get the Big Dipper set out, and his comedic cohort Jon Wurster is the drummer for Superchunk (as well as for The Mountain Goats.) I haven't even listened to them yet. I don't even know if I like Superchunk. But I've developed a personal relationship with some of these guys. {Sort of, I mean, they don't know who I am really, but I post on the forums and they are my facebook "friends." [Facebook is really great for stalking minor celebrities. (hint-hint, K)]}

Which of course has nothing to do with my inspiration for today's post. I may have tens of thousands of mp3s, but I really haven't been excited enough to listen to an album over and over again since my encounter with Group Inerane.

I found the album on the excellent blog exp etc, via a google buzz alert from Gary.

The description of the band makes it sound too good to be true:

Group Inerane is the now sound of the Tuareg Guitar Revolution sweeping across the Sahara Desert and inspired by the rebel musicians that started this music as a political weapon used to communicate from the Libyan Refugee camps in the 1980s and 1990s. Spearheaded by the enigmatic guitar hero Bibi Ahmed, Group Inerane has been together for several years and carries the rich tradition of Tamachek guitar songs for another generation. These ten tracks are a combination of amplified roots rock, blues, and folk in the local Tuareg styles at times entering into full-on electric guitar psychedelia.

It's an electric African psychedelic drone-rock blues. My God, man. My God.

Ojos de brujo

I've been loving this band for the past two years. My CD is in the car so here is a clip. Gypsy meets hip hop and tabla....what a wonderful word...their studio albums are great. Go out and treat your self...!! I'll be posting a few more clips just in case any one is listening....I want to see this band live.....

One from the Muses

Muses come in great forms and sizes. This music I first heard (for the first time ever) about three months ago and believed upon the first listen that I have had stumbled across a missing chapter of something akin to a dug up chapter of the Dead Sea Scrolls. My world of funk, disco, jazz and pop music was smashed to pieces. Move over Sly, I thought, this woman was coming in for the kill while recording; she had something to say and she was to making sure everyone heard her.
Then, magically, coincidental, oddly, disturbingly, lustfully, whimsically, I was browsing a book store and came across a bio by Miles Davis' son - Gregory. I flip it open and the first words I see is this singer/song writer, genius, enchantress' name - oh did I forget musician. She was what? - married to him, on the cover of File de Kilimanjaro, too - who is she? WOW! Did he really leave her because she was having an affair with Jimi..or did she leave him? Double Wow. So there are there stories behind the stories? This is not Inception everything is out for you to hear. The growl behind the voice, the shuffle of her vibrato. I never looked her up on the Internet when I first listened to her during the late months of Spring. I knew, eventually, fate would guide me to her -

I use to think Mia Farrow -, Puma- from Black Uhuru - and the woman who introduced Fela to American Political Soul music were the greatest of goddesses of the 20th century music (Mia may still win after all who else married Sinatra went to India with the Beatles and married Andre Previn, Woody who?)..who was with Stravinski?

But then I heard Betty.......and nothing was as it was before.....Betty Davis.......sit back and growl....enjoy your ice tea...your beer and chill....



It's been a quiet summer here so I thought I could bring some life back to this wonderful site....

People All Over The World Are Fighting In The War

Craving some Temptations, without the instruments?


Of course you are.


http://www.metafilter.com/92411/like-angels-on-high

Tho Your Dreams Be Tossed And Blown

More Youtube wonderfulness.

Four or Five Times

Last night's Youtube binge, re-created here for your pleasure.




















Also (not embedd-able, but highly recommended):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIVJw8yX6GY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_VRFwz3xTI

She Says She's Found A Way to Make Her Own Light

With teeth like these who needs enemies?

From the land of Turkmenistan I proudly introduce you to Ashkhabad. Here it is the Central Asian album of the decade with it's wonderful mixture of ancient central Asian funk and western string theory weaving around ideas of Asian theater music. Egypt sleeps with Bollywood having an affair with the Kronos Quartet. It's wonderful, it's bold and it's for you. It's what you need tonight.

I lost the notes, written by Peter Gabriel, years ago but the story of the singer, arranger, musician Ashkhabad is one that is hard to forget. A musician who was put off first by the communists and then by the new Muslim authority he went a bit mad- or was said by the authorities to have gone crazy - and spent some time in some kind of gulag sanatorium. Still, even after he was forbidden to play and compose music, he continued to play at weddings, getting any gig he could...I may have turned a one sentence blurb about his troubled and neglected past into something of a myth but I don't think I am far from the truth.
This album was bought in the days when I knew that anything the Real World offered would blow my mind. And this one did. I have taken it everywhere with me. Every time I listen to this album I hear something new; a rhythm blowing me away, a drum I didn't know existed, a note bending with the throat I didn't know could be poosible. I just love this music! It doesn't carry memories of my past but inspires my own ear to listen more intently as I let go and close off the world. This makes me want to dance like a dervish. The drumming, singing and strings will wrap you up and keep you warm though out the night.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/2gemmnc2kyj/CoL.rar

Enjoy the music: City of Light

Sorciere

Freaky folk from the old school: woodsy and darkly mystical.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/khzdjnwdmya/Veronique Chalot- J'ai Vu Le Loup.zip

More about her here: 

http://www.myspace.com/veroniquechalot

Simple Mathematics

http://mosdub.com/

It just doesn't get much hotter than this. Stream from the above link, and be happy.

SXSW 2010: Free Energy

Also, I saw Free Energy. A few times. They're pretty good.



Their new record is out today. AMG review here.

they're coming to take me

http://www.metafilter.com/91499/Now-is-Strange

Freedom's Just Another Word

New Old songs, collected as a new Kris Kristofferson album, streaming. Nonstop wonderfulness.

He crashed a helicopter into Johnny Cash's yard in order to bring you 'Sunday Morning Coming Down'. Dude deserves to be famouser than he is.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126169194&sc=nl&cc=mn-20100427

More Beetles

Still working on my guitar album. Here are some more of those recordings. Sadly, none of them seem like keepers: there are some sour moments, and I was having a mysterious computer glitch of some sort that inserts a crackle here and a pop there. Still, you may enjoy hearing them.
(The first link is a new take on one posted previously.)

http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_EyedElator.mp3
http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_BeautifulMapleBorer.mp3
http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_GrantsRhinoceros.mp3
http://radunicorn.com/erogray/guitar/April2010/EroGray_4-25-10_GreenWoodBorer.mp3

The Lovers Have Told Us

A nice music video from Rafter, an old pal and former boss who's made a bazillion excellent recordings. I saw him do an excellent, if underattended, show last night. He's playing again tonight at Southpaw if any Brooklyn folks are reading this.

Hell, here's another one. Enjoy:

I Just Can't Shoot That Good

This album was an early, transformative, blues experience for me: a cassette (made by the father of a high-school friend specifically as part of a wildly successful program to inculcate my young ears with THE BLUES and JAZZ) that I listened to over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I've heard a lot of Hopkins since, and he pretty much falls into the category of a lot of blues and jazz folks: every recording is excellent, so why pick a favorite? But this album seems pretty perfect in every way to me.

I remember really 'hearing' it for the first time, after many listens, one night while working alone at a tiny ice cream shop in a tourist trap in San Diego. I had the boom-box turned up, no customers were anywhere near, and I was bored, and then cleaning, and then mopping, and then bored again, and meanwhile this was playing. The sound of Lightnin's voice suddenly stopped sounding strange or foreign or 'black' or historical or like 'blues' or even like a recording of someone I'd never met and who'd been dead a long time, and suddenly sounded like THE VOICE, present now and living and true, with all of the sly humour and world-weariness and gentle wisdom and frailty and subtle anger and love, that all of us would sing with if we only knew how to sing with our pure inner selves; it sounded like the sound of my soul and yours. I decided that this was the true meaning of 'soul' music: not just a genre, but any music that really contained so much humanity that it could sweep your soul up into it and carry you along.  

I know now that this effect is a type of magic that can come from nearly any good music (I could make a long list of things that have made me feel this way, but many of them are already posted to this blog...), but that night I was young enough and the music was awesome enough that it really changed my life.

Give this one a few listens. And any time you see a Lightnin' Hopkins record, pick it up.

Here's a randomly selected video: there are other good ones out there but this will give you an idea of the magic.  

Lightnin' Hopkins - Come go home with me

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nozzxzmjmmh/Lightnin Hopkins- Texas Blues.zip

Check 'E'

I don't know much about this one. Downloaded it, fell in love with it, haven't been able to find and buy it. I bought another, similar one, but this album's a bit better. Basically, you have dubby spacey percolating endlessly seething hypno-sound, with steel guitars and primitive synth swoops punctuating a bed of music that's somehow both extremely hyperactive and also mellow and calming. It's a dance party you could fall asleep to.

Anyone know all about King Sunny Ade? Tell me more in comments.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ddymwuymznd/King Sunny Ade and his African Beats - Check 'E'.zip

Let's Get Together and Rub Rub Rub

Bought this on LP a while back in a used bookstore, and have been enjoying it tremendously. Highlights include the lecherous 'Stoop Down Girl' and a personal favorite, 'Let's Get Drunk Again'.

Lou Curtiss at Folk Arts Rare Records in San Diego (see long and wordy previous post) talked about Sam Chatmon when I last visited. I'd made an offhand comment about the blues tradition of sharing lyrics; that there was this underlying pool of ideas that everyone traded and re-combined. He pointed out that a lot of the underlying songcraft came from really gifted songwriters like Sam Chatmon, who'd penned many of the songs that then became common currency (in part or in whole).

Sam was a member of the incredibly influential Mississippi Sheiks, and possibly a half-brother of the great Charlie Patton.

Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jwmmdydennm/Sam Chatmon- Blues When It Rains.zip

On the Road to My Heart

Fans of classic country will be delighted by Merle Haggard's new one, now streaming from NPR. His voice is more tremulous than of old, and the general intent seems a bit mellower than in some past releases; but the songs, and the instrumentation surrounding them, are as rich and delicious as ever.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125636724

Electrocution

I've heard this twice on NPR now, and I'm totally crushing on it. I've never heard (though I've certainly heard of) Nada Surf before, and I don't care if it's a cover and also a sonic ripoff of the Byrds. It's a delicious song and I plan on buying the record when it comes out. Hot damn.


http://one-track-mind.com/nada-surf-electrocution/

SXSW 2010: Sondre Lerche

I stumbled upon the Norwegian balladeer's music in the early aughties on an Astralwerks sampler. Part of me is a big sucker for well-crafted pop songs, and another, smaller part is a sucker of schmaltzy, well-crafted pop songs. Sondre's music usually falls right in between.

You could write the guy off as a novelty; I mean, what else comes from Norway except big sweaters and lots of fish? But Lerche has a nice combination of talent and humility that keeps him searching for interesting things to do.

Anyways. I saw him a few years ago, actually right when I moved to Austin, and it was a solo show. I wasn't really into it. But when I saw he was playing an inside venue on a very unseasonably cold SXSW Saturday, I thought I'd check him out again.

It was great. It was like watching Sondre busking for euros at some subway station. The crowd was unsure of itself in the beginning, but completely attentive and silent by the end of his first number. Here's a song - I think it was the first one he played - from that show. It's called "Airport, Taxi, Reception". (The person who uploaded it wasn't sure).

SXSW 2010: The Soft Pack

This was the band I was most excited to see this year. I saw them last year by chance and was thrilled by their cover of Phoenix's "Fences". Their interpretation was a droll, Velvet Undergroundy reading of the French group's choice album cut.

But, more than that, they remind me of the influential but short-lived trio, Sirens of Titan.

Also hailing from sunny San Diego, the Soft Pack combine distilled rock riffs with descriptive SoCal imagery and personal dissatisfaction. After several listens to their latest CD, it in many ways sounds like something SoT might have done had the group been able to stay together.

Witness The Soft Pack's "Pull Out", a song suggesting California secede from the US:


A song with lyrics that might have easily been penned by Ryan and Justin; guitar-work not unlike an angsty Ero would play. Similiarly, "Mexico":



with its tale of lost love and running to Mexico, and its suave six string work, seems like something hammered out of a SoT practice session. Also, I'll ask the listener to compare "Parasites" with the Sirens of Titan's "I Don't Lie":



and I think the parallels are there. Or maybe not.

Finally, just enjoy this great single and video from the Soft Pack.

SXSW 2010: Vivian Girls

I've been meaning to see this band for a few years. They always come to SXSW and play several shows; so many shows that I never seem to act with any urgency when I see them listed because I feel I can always catch them another time.

Anyway, they were sharing a bill with someone we had run over to see and I realized my time had finally come. Yes, I just bought another beer and stuck around.



Vivian Girls are a staple of the Brooklyn scene, and their sound is all about gritty three-chord-rock with twee lyrics. There's enough growl and grace, though, to keep things interesting. They have some surprisingly Stereolab-like harmonies, and I really like how the singer sings out of the side of her mouth (not visible in this particular video).

I thought they were pretty good but will need to reinvent themselves when the "girls" become "women".